For the first time in five years, Team Colorado once again was a big factor in The Basketball Tournament.

For at least one year, the Colorado basketball alums won’t attempt to build on that success in the annual summer showcase.

After reaching the Sweet 16 of the $1 million winner-take-all tournament last summer, Team Colorado is not expected to return to the 2025 edition of The Basketball Tournament. A confluence of several factors will keep the Colorado alumni team from reconvening this summer, including the rising entry fees of TBT and the recent hiring of former CU assistant Zach Ruebesam as the head coach at CSU-Pueblo. Ruebesam coached Team Colorado the past two summers and took the lead on assembling the roster.

Several alumni squads have announced their intention to compete in this year’s TBT in recent weeks, but Team Colorado needed to raise around $60,000 to compete in last year’s tournament, a total that includes the entry fee as well as travel expenses. Between an increased entry fee and heightened travel expenses, the fundraising factor — in a relatively short window of time — became a major hurdle for any potential replacement for Ruebesam.

“It was a combination of things,” Ruebesam said. “We were still considering doing it, because we had momentum and everything going. I knew last year was going to be my last year because I couldn’t take everything on again, because the endeavor is just so much to get going.”

A decade ago, when TBT was in its infancy, the former Colorado basketball standouts became one of the early fixtures of the tournament. In 2016, Team Colorado reached the title game and took a big early lead before losing the payoff in a second-half letdown.

The former Buffs again reached the Sweet 16 in 2017 and were eliminated in the second round the next two years.

The Team Colorado program went on hiatus when the COVID pandemic struck in 2020, not returning to The Basketball Tournament until 2023. A rash of injuries just ahead of TBT that sidelined Tyler Bey, George King and Dallas Walton helped send Team Colorado to a first-round loss, but with former CU standout and NBA veteran Andre Roberson in the mix last summer, Ruebesam helped lead the former Buffs back to the Sweet 16.

“It’s unfortunate, because we did so much work to get it going again,” Ruebesam said.